


i'll care for your bones

by leosunderground



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Epistolary, Everyone will die at some point, Fluff and Angst, HOO cast as the 1474's Pantheon, Leo is at it again my people, M/M, No one gets a happy ending, Period-Typical Homophobia, The Wicked + The Divine AU, This is essentially Nico and Jason writing letters to Bianca and Thalia, everyone else will make brief appearances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 21:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14029395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leosunderground/pseuds/leosunderground
Summary: Every ninety years twelve gods return as young people.They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead.The year is 1474. It is happening now. It is happening again.Nico and Jason write letters to sisters long gone.Jason and I have always been together, haven’t we, Bianca? I suppose I should know that we’d be together in death as well.Once again, we return.





	i'll care for your bones

**Author's Note:**

> Once again we return with the once again we return.
> 
> Wow, Leo another WicDiv AU? Well folks, guess who is not handling WicDiv ending in 2k19 that well?  
> I'd like to thank everyone over on the Jasico discord, because damn, guys, you are wonderful. Let's revive Jasico with sheer force of will.  
> Have fun!

>  - >  > > >  > > > >  - >

quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu

December 1474

<  - <  < < <  < < < <  - <

 

Dearest Bianca,

 

It’s been awhile since I have last written you, hasn’t it? The last years have been… They have been, let’s leave it at that. I have been good, I haven’t felt good since you left me, but now I’m finally healing, painting again.

I have even managed to sell a few pieces, get a few commissioned works. Life as an artist is hard, it is an unappreciated job by the people.

Father isn’t so impressed with my career choices but we don’t fight as much, not anymore and with the intensity that we used to, he is healing too, a little more as time passes.

I think people confuse the prospect of healing with normalcy, to go back to a time when you weren’t sick or going back to who we were before, I don’t that is correct. I don’t want to go back to my naive self, nor do I want Father to be who he was before.

Do you remember the Grace boy? Of course, you do. What a silly question to ask. I have always talked about him to you, he has always been a dear friend to me. A very, dear friend.

I think I love him. I think I always have.

It is such a strange thing to do, love, it is. I never said it aloud, only ever thought of these words, and I never wrote them down. Writing or saying them sounded so final, once words were brought into the world they changed, became alive and were different, if I said or wrote my feelings for him, they would blossom and become out of my control.

I have nothing to lose now, except him.

You are probably asking yourself what brought this on, why am I writing after years. I will get to that momentarily.

Jason took me to the square today, to celebrate my birthday. I will not be nineteen for a month but Jason won’t be here in a month, dispatched to some distant land (France, I think), to fight someone’s else war and make his family proud, so neither of us saw it in the wrong to celebrate early.

Bianca, do you remember the stories mama told us about the gods? About how they enchanted the masses into some promiscuous rituals, made everyone stray from the righteous path of Our Lord and fall right into indecency? She always spoke of them in this mystical tone, a cautionary tale for sure, but not something true, spoken into reality.

Bianca.

The gods are here.

I saw them, I saw them perform.

God, Bianca.

It was the best sensation I had in my entire life. It was magic come true, everything from the fairy tales come true and more. It was a miracle. Sure, I was a little drunk at the time, but no amount of alcohol could replicate what I saw, what I felt.

Hephaestus was performing on the stage, playing with fire like it was alive, it danced around him and took forms as he commanded, the same for his little creations that jumped and hopped around. Those couldn’t be real, they looked mechanical like nothing I have seen in my entire life, his little  _ automata _ he said.

Aphrodite was secluded away, on the other side of the square enchanting people with her stories. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She was glowing and floating through the stage, and I could see with my eyes as the stories she told took form in the foam that came out of her. Jason and I talked about this, a little before I started writing this letter, we all heard different things from her, we heard what we wanted to hear, and we loved it. At that moment, I would have died for her.

Then the guards came.

The Church is not happy with this, not this close to the Papal States, and especially this close to Rome. The gods are a treat to their legitimacy, calling they heretics and pagans, certainly the opposition to their teaching. But I wonder, if there is a Catholic God among them, it is a possibility, after all, we do have the rumors of Lucifer in Rome back in 455. If the snake exists, why not the savior as well?

I barely saw Aphrodite moving to get Hephaestus and the two burst into bubbles, carried by the winds and I only felt Jason grabbing my hand as the two of us sprung into a mad run through the alleyways. We were laughing as we traversed the mazes that the inner city proved to be, but surely we would be severely trialed if caught. At least I would, Jason would be freed by his Father as soon as he heard, though I doubt he would leave me defenseless.

Bianca? Remember when I told you I had nothing to lose? That is because I’m going to die.

Or, that I’m already dead. Which one is it when it is a death you cannot escape?

My hands are trembling as I write and I’m doing my best not to cry. I can hear Jason in the other room. I wonder how he is feeling. Would he tell me the truth, if I asked?

We were told that there would be twelve of them, but that is a lie. There is one more, and no one ever talked about her.

We meet Ananke, as I would later learn, in one of the dead ends near my house, she was waiting for you there, like we would have this fated encounter. I suppose we were destined to this after everything, gods can’t be chosen, can they? Who would choose this fate for any of us?

Ananke was nothing like the other gods, she looked old, faded, and about to disappear into dust. She shined in the moonlight, like a diamond chiseled by time, she didn’t look frail like someone her age should look, she looked powerful, there was something hidden beneath her skin, even if faded, she was still divine.

Jason let my hand go immediately, we knew what the implications of being caught like this would mean, even if none of us had ever talked about it before. I told you, didn’t I? Words spoken were different. I could hear the guards coming, the clank of their swords and armors filling the air as they hit the cramped walls. I was about to tell Jason that we should leave when she spoke.

“I have looked everywhere for you two.” Her eyes shined unnaturally blue, even bluer than Jason’s eyes, and then I was falling.

I remember her words being all around me like the earth had swallowed me and it was screaming who I was in their eyes, she was everywhere at once, and I was everything beneath the earth.

 

You are of the Pantheon.

You will be loved. You will be hated.

You will be brilliant.

Within two years, you will be dead.

Child of time and earth betrothed to destruction.

You are the judge of souls, unjustifiably hated.

He who seats beneath all creation, unseen.

Unheard.

  
  


Jason was looking at me when I emerged, he looked incredulous like he saw a ghost or a god. He was about to speak but he was next. Ananke looked at him, and it was like Jason ceased to exist, blinked out of existence in a flash. But I could hear her, Ananke’s, words to him.

 

You are of the Pantheon.

You will be loved. You will be hated.

You will be brilliant.

Within two years, you will be dead.

King of Gods. Ruler of the Skies, of the Storm.

All beneath the Sun is your kingdom.

Men sacrifice to your name for justice.

For truth. For war. In death.

 

Like that, Jason was back and with him came the storm, the moon was hidden by clouds that came out of nowhere, vanished from the skies and just like that a heavy rain fell, and it washed everything.

“We meet again,” Ananke said as she took steps towards. “Hades,” She acknowledged me. “Jupiter.” When she looked at Jason. “I’ve missed you.”

And we rushed to hug her. I knew her. I remembered her. Like an old memory clouded by a magical mist, an old friend, a dear companion and something more, something that was there just was at the fringe of everything, it screamed at me  _ remember remember remember _ . That memory wasn't mine, it was Hades’.

And what the earth spat out was Hades.

I was Hades, and Hades was Nico. But at the same time, I was just Nico, the same boy who was and will always be your little brother, and who will always love Jason.

I seem fond of that word, now that I can speak it. Write it.

And like that the spell was broken. We heard the guards coming into the alley and before I could do anything, Jason moved swiftly and with a snap of fingers the guards were flung by a guff of air, the sound that was made by them colliding against the wall was heartbreaking. Had Jason killed them? With just a finger-snap, five men dead, would I have felt it? Their souls leaving the bodies? Would I have felt their struggle to stay alive? I think I would, I'm the god of Death now. I'm glad that I didn't.

Bianca, I was so scared of Jason for that flimsy second. I have never been scared of Jason before, he was kind, fierce but kind. He had killed before, of that I knew, he was a soldier, but I have never seen him kill anyone. Not with that ease. No one should have that kind of power over the lives of others, but now we did.

“We must go,” Ananke said. “You know the way. You know how.” She whispered.

And I did know. Or Hades did? Where does the god begin and I end? And that kept ringing in my mind as I grabbed them both by the hand ran into the wall, I thought I would hit solid brick but we didn’t. The shadows swallowed us, and darkness overtook everything.

I will tell you about the Underground one day, Bianca. Once I make sense of it if there sense to be made about the collective lands of the death. For now, I will say, it felt mine but it also felt like it belonged to so many others, to all the other Gods and Goddesses that belonged beneath the earth.

We made it to our house, thankfully Father was out doing what he does in the night. Ananke had left quickly, promising to find us on the morrow. Would she always find us, Bianca? Her promise felt so much like a threat, and I felt like she could make it into reality, she made us gods, after all, we were bound to her.

She was gleeful, tired but happy. She smiled at us, motherly even as she said “Once again, we return.”, we were all here, the twelve of us, once more. How many times have we done this? I felt like even if I asked, she wouldn’t answer.

After I escorted her out, I found Jason brewing tea in the kitchen and I was overcome with emotion. How could I not? I was going to die, in two years I would be dead. There was a time where I wouldn’t have minded that, so fresh from wounds you and mama left in me. I was given divinity, but it would devour me whole.

I didn’t feel like a God, I felt like someone took the rest of my life from me.

Jason looked different, his hair was long and curled up, looking more blonder than before, and now sported a thunderbolt scar across his eyebrow. Not only the gods changed us on the inside, but also on the outside. Had I changed as well? How much would we change before we stopped being ourselves?

We stayed there for at each looking at each other for what felt like forever.

Jason moved then like he lived in this house and raised one of his hands to touch my cheek. He was so warm, and I swear I felt the air crackling with lightning. He spoke softly to me then, “May I kiss you, Nico?” and for a moment, I was lost in his stormy blue eyes, all the reasons why I shouldn’t do that passed through my head, but not that mattered anymore. I could have this, for two years, then I’d be dead anyway. Two years with Jason, or two years without. The answer was clear.

He kissed me and I tasted a promise that neither of us spoke, because what use was promises between the dead? Nothing needed to be spoken, the morning would be there, of that, we were certain, even if our mornings were counted, but would spend that time together, and that was what mattered.

Jason and I have always been together, haven’t we, Bianca?. I suppose I should have to know that we’d be together in death as well.

And here we are now, Bianca. Me, writing this letter, and you listening. I know that this letter will never reach you, but it frees my heart to write it, to you I can confess anything. In the morning I will talk to Jason, and we will explore our divinity together, I want to know what we can do it. Could we change the world? I hope so. I hope we can change for the better.

The opposite is also very likely and that is what scares me the most. We are but children playing gods.

I wish you were here to tell me what to do. You always seemed to know the right thing to do, the right thing to say, when to speak or stay quiet. Nothing like me, I guess that was way Father loved you more. And even if you couldn’t, I wish I were in your arms, I have always loved your hugs, even if I never told you.

 

With all the love I have,

Nico di Angelo.

 

>   **>**   > >  > > >  > > > **>**   >

quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur

December 1474

<   **<**   < <  < < <  < < < **<**   <

**Author's Note:**

> The latin phrase at the begin means: It is how well you live that matters, not how long.  
> Whereas the one at the end means: Whatever said in Latin, seems profound.  
> Can you feel the irony? It is meant to be very ironic.  
> Feel free to talk to me over @ [ leosunderground](http://leosunderground.tumblr.com).


End file.
